This invention relates to a wood based product, and more particularly, to a wood based product for use as poultry bedding.
Traditionally, in order to form poultry bedding, commercial poultry operations utilize products that are available in each geographic area. For example, wood shavings, sawdust, hulls, straw and a combination of these materials are used.
Major problems involved in such bedding relate to moisture and ammonia.
Most bedding materials are placed in barns at high moisture. In order to attempt to dry bedding, heat is often turned on in a barn for days in advance of entering poultry into the barn. The need of pre-heating increases heating costs. However, even if the bedding is somewhat dried, once poultry start to use the bedding, the bedding becomes damp as it is challenged by poultry waste. When poultry use damp bedding, the feet of poultry become blistered, which inhibits mobility and thus inhibits growth of poultry. In broiler breeders, this also tends to hamper rooster performance, which lowers egg production. Dampness may also leads to joint problems, especially in turkeys, which also hurts growth. Dampness promotes decomposition of the bedding materials. Dampness also promotes xe2x80x9ccakingxe2x80x9d of bedding materials to form hard clumps in the bedding. This often leads to blisters on the breasts of poultry as poultry rub their breasts on the bedding as they stand from lying down positions. The wet bedding then promotes infection, thus down grading poultry final products. Dampness may also cause respiratory problems in poultry, which also down grade the quality of poultry final products. Furthermore, dampness contributes to high activity of flies and black wing beetles, which may cause disease in poultry. Especially, black wing beetles eat feed and bite the underside of poultry, which leads to open sores ripe for infection.
As the bedding materials compost due to moisture, additional heat is generated in the barn. Especially in summer months, such heat must be expelled out of the barn by fans. This also increases electricity costs.
Further, levels of ammonia in the barn increase as the grow progresses, to the point of burning eyes and throat of anyone entering barn. Such high levels of ammonia cause blindness in poultry, which limits mobility to feeders and inhibits growth. Also, these high levels of ammonia affect the overall health of poultry and promotes lung disease.
Such an environment with high humidity and high ammonia levels affects overall health of poultry and increases the mortality rates in poultry.
Some additives have been proposed to attempt to deal with some of these problems. Those additives include insecticides and clay additives to control ammonia. However, they are additives to existing bedding. The other disadvantages of existing bedding still remain. Accordingly, a different material is needed to make bedding. In particular, the additives deal only with ammonia and do not provide a remedy for the moisture related problems. Also, those additives usually last only for a few weeks.
In the commercial poultry industry, a production cycle is generally longer than a few weeks. For example, turkey growers traditionally follow a 16 week growth cycle after birds are received from hatchery. For chicken growers, broilers typically follow a 6 week growth cycle or a 37 to 42 day growth cycle from the receipt of chicks to the transmission to processing plants. Broiler breeders produce eggs for hatcheries to incubate, then distribute chicks to broiler operations. Each flock typically begins egg production in 20 weeks, and produces eggs for up to 40 weeks.
Accordingly, those additives would not last long enough for a complete production cycle. Also, as indicated above, the additives do not cause lowering of moisture in the growth environment.
It is known to use various sizes of whole wood pellets or crumbled wood pellets as kitty litter or other household pet bedding. Also, it is known to use wood pellets as bedding for horses. Wood pellets are capable of controlling odours. However, they are not suitable for use as bedding for poultry. Expelling ammonia and associated nitrates to the atmosphere is an environmental concern. Also, ammonia levels are a major concern relating to worker health.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,044,324 issued on Sep. 3, 1991 to Morgan discloses use of wood fibre crumbles as an animal litter. The crumbles are made by grinding wood pellets made by pelletizing in a conventional animal feed pelletizer. By grinding pellets, wood fibre dust is generated, which Morgan suggests should be vacuumed away from the crumbles. Morgan does not address any of the specific problems encountered in poultry operations or suggest any solution to such specific problems.
Therefore, there is a need to provide bedding material which is suitable for use as bedding for poultry and which is capable of absorbing moisture and odours for a period long enough to be used in a full production cycle in commercial poultry operations.
The present invention provides a wood based product which comprises wood fibres having a specific particle size, dryness and density. By using such condensed wood fibres, the wood based product is capable of functioning as physical bedding for poultry providing effective absorption of moisture and ammonia for a complete production cycle for commercial poultry operations.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a wood based product for use as bedding for poultry. The wood based product comprises condensed natural wood fibres having a bulk density of about 20 lbs/ft3 or greater at moisture content of about 15% by weight or less, and each particle of the wood fibres having a particle size of less than about {fraction (3/16)} of an inch.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of providing bedding for poultry, the method comprising the steps of preparing a wood based product comprising condensed natural wood fibres having bulk density of about 20 lbs/ft3 or greater at moisture content of about 15% by weight or less, and each particle of the wood fibres having a particle size of less than about {fraction (3/16)} of an inch, and forming bedding for poultry using the wood based product.
Other aspects and features of the present invention will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art from a review of the following detailed description of preferred embodiments in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.